International quartet seek to end barren spell in Jones Cup

Four full England internationals, three of whom are at college in the United States, will represent England Golf in the annual Jones Invitational Cup at Ocean Forest Golf Club at Sea Island, Georgia, on 1st – 3rd February.

The quartet will be Seb Crookall-Nixon (Workington, Cumbria), Jack Hiluta (Chelmsford, Essex), Ben Stow (Rushmore, Wiltshire) and Ben Taylor (Walton Heath, Surrey) and they will seek to win this US title that has continually eluded English players.

Crookall-Nixon, 19, the English under 16 champion in 2008 and 2009, has been capped at every level, making his full England debut in last year’s Home Internationals, just months after recovering from a serious road accident. He also reached the quarter finals of the English Amateur Championship in his home county of Cumbria and is currently at the University of San Francisco.

Hiluta, 23, completed his studies at the University of South Alabama last year and has also been capped at all levels for England, making his full debut in last year’s international with France at Rochester & Cobham. He made a fast start to 2012 by winning the Spanish Amateur and also represented England in the European Men’s Challenge Trophy and the Home Internationals and finished ninth on the Titleist/FootJoy England Golf Order of Merit.

Stow, 21, currently at the University of Kentucky, has been a full cap for the past two years after making his debut in the 2011 Home Internationals. He was the leading individual when helping England to victory in last year’s European Men’s Challenge Trophy in Iceland while he finished seventh in the Scottish Open Stroke Play, eighth in the European Amateur and ninth in the Brabazon Trophy.

Taylor, 20, the only member of the quartet to play in last year’s Jones Cup, finishing third, debuted for England in the 2011 Home Internationals in Ireland. In 2012, he finished third in the Lagonda Trophy, fifth in the Brabazon Trophy, was a quarter finalist in the English Amateur and represented GB&I in the St Andrews Trophy. He is at the Nova Southeastern University in Florida.

In the Jones Cup, a field of 84 top amateurs from the US and around the world, will compete over 54 holes of stroke play for this prestigious title which was inaugurated in 2001 as a biennial event but which is now played annually.